For the first few days in Paris Quixtus had little time to devote to the secondary object of his visit. The meetings and excursions of the Congress absorbed his attention. His Parisian confrères took him to their homes and exhibited their collections of flint instruments, their wives and their daughters. He attended intimate dinners, the words sans cérémonie being underlined in the invitation, where all the men, who had worn evening dress in the morning at a formal function of the Congress, assembled in the salon gravely attired in tightly-buttoned frock-coats and wearing dogskin gloves which they only took off when they sat down to table. His good provincial colleagues, who thought they might just as well hear the chimes at midnight while they were in Paris as not, insisted on his accompanying them in their mild dissipation: This generally consisted in drinking beer at a brasserie filled with parti-coloured ladies and talking palæolithic gossip amid the bewildering uproar of a Tzigane band. Now and again Huckaby, who assured him that he was prosecuting his researches in the fauna of the Hôtel Continental, where, on Huckaby’s advice, they were staying, would accompany him on such adventures.
Curiously enough, Quixtus had begun to like the man again. Admitted on a social equality and dressed in reputable garments, Huckaby began to lose the assertiveness of manner mingled with furtive flattery which of late had characterised him. He began to assume an air of self-respect, even of good-breeding. Quixtus noticed with interest the change wrought in him by clothes and environment, and contrasted him favourably with Billiter, whom new and gorgeous raiment had rendered peculiarly offensive. There were times when he could forget the sorry mission which Huckaby had undertaken, and find pleasure in his conversation. Scrupulous sobriety aided the temporary metamorphosis. As he spoke French passably and had retained a considerable amount of scholarship, Quixtus (to his astonishment) found that he could introduce him with a certain pride to his brother anthropologists, as one who would cast no discredit on his country. Huckaby was quick to perceive his patron’s change of attitude, and took pains to maintain it. The novelty, too, of mingling again with clean-living, intellectual and kindly men afforded him a keen pleasure which was worth a week’s abstinence from whisky. Whether it was worth a whole life of respectability and endeavour was another matter. The present sufficed him.
He played the scholarly gentleman so well that Quixtus was not surprised, one afternoon, when passing through the great lounge of the Continental, to see a lady rise from a tea-table and greet his companion in the friendliest manner.
“Eustace Huckaby, can that possibly be you—or is it your ghost?”
Huckaby bowed over the proffered hand. “What an unexpected delight.”
“It’s years and years since we met. How many?”
“I daren’t count them, for both our sakes,” said Huckaby.
“Why have you dropped out of my horizon for all this time?” asked the lady.
“Mea maxima culpa.” He smiled, bowed in the best-bred way in the world, and half turned, so as to bring Quixtus into the group. “May I introduce my friend Dr. Quixtus? Mrs. Fontaine.”